


Super Things

by ewinfic



Series: The Jessie Chronicles [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 05:00:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18804205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewinfic/pseuds/ewinfic
Summary: Just how, exactly, DO you raise a child with enhanced abilities?  A tough discussion between Joey and her parents.  Standalone ficlet, at least for now.





	Super Things

**Author's Note:**

> I've included some events from Infinity War and Endgame, Steve is aged now though it isn't specifically mentioned, and I've cheerfully hand-waved Bucky getting his arm back, though you can most likely assume Tony had something to do with it before Thanos arrived. Joey is ten years old in this ficlet.

Mother said I shouldn't do it, and Daddy said I shouldn't do it, and even Uncle Steve said I shouldn't do it. But Percy said I should do it, so I went and did it anyway. I swam across the whole lake and back. It took me an hour and I was nearly run over by three different motorboats, but I did it and then I couldn't tell anybody about it because everybody but Percy said I shouldn't.

But Percy knew, and that was enough, because it shut him up finally.

I could have told Uncle Joe. He would understand. But then he'd punish Percy, and I'd lose a friend. I don't have enough of them to risk losing him. Technically he has to be my friend because he's my cousin, but the way Percy is... it's just not worth it.

Percy's always daring me to do stuff. Mother says it's because he's jealous of my abilities. I tell Percy he shouldn't be jealous because he's younger and he shouldn't be able to do stuff like that yet, but Percy is smart enough to know better, and he's bigger than I am even if he is younger. I've always been small. Mother says I take after my grandmother, who died when Mother was a teenager, and Percy takes after Uncle Joe. I'm small, but I'm strong, and I'm fast. I can outrun Daddy, and I usually do, and he doesn't even mind. He brags about it to Mother. Sometimes we all run together and I literally run circles around the two of them because it's boring otherwise. Daddy thinks it's hilarious, but Mother worries that I'll grow up to be a showoff. She always makes me stop.

I might be a showoff. I'm not sure. I don't have that many people to show off to. It's because I'm this big secret, which is annoying, but Daddy explained it to me, and I understand that I'm a security risk to SHIELD if people find out about me. I watch Mother sometimes, though, and I think it's more than that. She's scared every time we go out to shop or eat or hang out at the lake, and sometimes she stands between me and strangers like she's protecting me. It makes me wonder what it is about normal people that is so scary. The way they talk and act, they just seem like people to me.

When I got back to the cabin after the swim, I saw that Percy was talking to Mother and Daddy, and he turned to look at me and he had that evil look in his eye and I thought, Oh, NO. He ran away before I got to them, and in that moment, I hated him.

Mother gave me this cold look and said, "Inside and get showered and changed. Now." She went inside. Daddy looked at me and he looked so sad that I instantly regretted the whole thing, but it was too late. Daddy is already sad sometimes for no reason--Mother says it's depression--and the last thing I want is for him to ever be sad because of me. We went inside.

I wasn't sure just how angry Mother was, so I pulled my hair up in the shower and then called on her to ask if she would do my hair for me. I used to have her help with it, I've got this HUGE amount of thick black hair and it waves and curls around just like Daddy's hair, and I'm not sure I'm getting it all clean. But it's been like forever since I started doing it myself almost all the time. This was just a test.

"Come on out, we'll do it in the sink." We do that when she doesn't want to get soaked.

So we rolled up a towel and put it on the sink ledge and she washed my hair, and her hands were really gentle. Sometimes when she's angry about something or really in a hurry, she pulls my hair, but she didn't today. Which was either a good thing or a really bad thing, so my experiment didn't really give me any results.

We towel-dried my hair and Mother said, "Come on, let's talk," and her voice wasn't cold anymore, so that was reassuring.

I sat on the couch between her and Daddy. I could tell they had been talking while I was in the shower.

Daddy said, really softly, "Baby girl, did Percy dare you to swim the lake?"

I shook my head.

Mother took my hand. "Joey, we know perfectly well that the only time you ever do something rash or dangerous is when Percy dares you to do it. I can understand that you don't want him to get into trouble. But what you need to understand is that when we tell you not to do something, we have good reasons for it. And they're not always reasons you can understand."

I thought about that for a second. "How can I ever understand them if you don't tell them to me? I mean, maybe I'll figure it out."

"That's not what I mean," said Mother. "I know you're very smart. But you can't understand what it's like to have a daughter and watch her do dangerous things and know what that feels like. You won't understand it until you're grown and have babies of your own."

I've already decided that I'm never going to do anything as ordinary as having babies when I grow up--I want to go out and save the world like Uncle Steve used to do--but I nodded anyway.

Daddy said, "When you do Super things, like swim a whole lake where everybody on the lake can see you going faster than any grownup can go, you make people wonder why. If the wrong person sees you, you could be in danger."

"What kind of danger?"

Daddy looked at Mother and she looked back at him and shook her head. He said, "Jess, she needs to know."

Mother's eyebrows lowered in that way she has of looking determined when something is difficult, and said, "I don't want her having nightmares."

Daddy said, "Nightmares that may help save her life?"

Now I was worried. I thought she might mean monsters, like Thanos, who made Daddy disintegrate when I was a baby and come back two years ago. I had always wanted to fight monsters, and that didn't scare me. But she might also mean snakes, and THAT scared me.

Mother said, "Fine. I'll do it. Joey, look at me, I want to see your eyes." So I looked at her, and she said, "Imagine that you're in a room with people who won't let you leave, people who have sticks and guns and electric prods. Imagine that you can't get away no matter how hard you try. Can you imagine that?"

I said, "But what if I fight my way out, and run really fast?"

She shook her head. "You can't. You're locked up. And more than that... imagine that they have control of your mind, so that you can't even think about running. Imagine you can't remember me, or Daddy, and that all you can remember is being in this room. Try again. Can you imagine it?"

It seemed bizarre, but I tried.

"Now imagine that, because you can do Super things, they want you to go out and do bad things with your abilities. Imagine they want you to hurt innocent people. And you can't say no, because they have control of your mind. You can only think what they want you to think. Take another minute and imagine that."

I closed my eyes this time. I thought about a dark room with people in it who looked dark and serious, the way Uncle Lawrence sometimes looks, and who had guns. I thought about not being able to think what I wanted to. Then it came to me, because I get that way sometimes before it's time for my yearly shot. I get really vague and dizzy, and I can't think straight. I thought about being like that all the time. And I thought about hurting people. I never hurt innocent people, because Uncle Steve says that's how a hero should operate. And I've never met anybody who was really a bad person but Percy, and I know him too well to hurt him except for little things, like when we arm wrestle. It was kind of scary, but too weird to seem real. I opened my eyes and said, "I think I know what you mean."

Daddy said, "No, you don't." In this really odd dark voice. "Let me show you." He took my hand in his, and his grip was strong even though it wasn't his metal arm. I'm really strong, but not nearly as strong as Daddy is. He said, "Imagine your arm is a gun." Then he lifted my arm and pointed it at Mother. "Now, I'm going to make you shoot your mother."

I shook my head, feeling nervous. "No you won't, I'll get away."

"Try."

I tried to pull my hand away, but I couldn't. I pushed his arm with my other hand. I tried to think my way through the problem, the way Mother always told me to. I looked up at Daddy, and his face was like a mask, and that was when I started to feel real fear. I said, "Let go."

"No." Suddenly his metal arm was around my waist, and I was trapped.

I took a deep breath and slapped his normal arm with my free hand. His arm didn't move. I punched it. I tried to kick him but I was at the wrong angle... I punched and punched his arm and he didn't let go. Tears started in my eyes, but he didn't let go. I looked up at Mother, and saw that she was crying, but she didn't help me.

He said, "Now I'm going to make you shoot your mother." He raised my arm and pointed it again.

"No I'm no--"

"BANG!"

Mother closed her eyes and her head sank down like it was heavy. I knew she was still alive because she was still crying, but in my head, I had killed her. I was crying now too.

"She's dead now," he said.

"No she's not!"

"You killed her."

"I didn't! Let me go!"

"That's enough," said Mother.

Daddy let go finally, and I jumped forward and hugged Mother and she pulled me into her lap which she hadn't done in ages, and she petted my hair and said it was okay, it was okay now, it was over, but I was still crying, and I was terrified of Daddy, and I had NEVER been scared of Daddy.

I looked back at him and he looked normal again, but his face was so sad.

"Why did you do that?" I said, angry now. My punching hand was sore, and I could see red marks on Daddy's arm.

Mother said, "Because that's just exactly what bad men did to your Daddy, years and years ago, before you were born. They took his mind away and made him hurt people. He couldn't escape."

"And that's what bad men could do to you, too," Daddy said. "Once they know you can do Super things, they'll want you to do evil. They'll turn you into a weapon."

I imagined Daddy hurting people, and I wouldn't have been able to before, but now I could. I could see him going out with that masklike face and hurting innocent people. I hated thinking that. For a moment, I hated Daddy for making me see him like that, but then I just felt depressed. Daddy was the strongest person I know. If bad men could capture him and force him to do bad things... I didn't stand a chance. At least, not yet.

"How did you get away?" I asked Daddy, softly.

"Your mother and Uncle Steve had to help me. They had to help me for a long time before I was healthy again." He smiled at me and it was the saddest smile I had ever seen. "That's why I'm still depressed sometimes. It's because of that time in my life."

I tried to think practically, like Mother was always telling me to do. "So how do I tell if someone's bad?"

"You can't always tell until they do something bad to you," said Mother. "That's the whole problem."

I thought about the way Mother looked when she took me out around strangers, and suddenly, like figuring out how to solve one of my lock-slide wooden puzzles, I got it. I knew why she was scared.

"What do I do?" I whispered. I thought maybe I should stay in the house forever so that the bad men couldn't capture me. But that's not what Uncle Steve would have done.

"As long as you're a kid, when you're around people you don't know, you pretend you don't have Super powers," said Mother firmly. "That's what we've been telling you to do all this time, but now you know why. You need to run a little slower, act like you're less strong." She was still holding me like she was afraid for me, and I didn't try to push away like I usually would.

"And when that little shit Percy--"

"Bucky!" Mother said, disapprovingly.

Daddy frowned. "Sorry. When Percy dares you to do something Super, you just tell him no. You're old enough and strong enough to do that, now. And we're trusting you. Will you do that?"

I nodded. Still trying to think practically, I said, "What do I do if the bad men catch me?"

"If the bad men catch you, we'll find you," said Mother. "We'll find you, and save you."

"But what if you can't?"

Mother looked at Daddy, and he looked back, and it was like they were arguing with their eyes, but finally he said, "We'll find you. We'll get you back. And God help the men who took you." He paused. "But it will be hard to find you, so please be careful."

I knew then that the argument they were having with their eyes meant that they were afraid they couldn't find me if I was taken, and that was worse than snakes, and worse than needles, and worse than Percy making fun of me. Way, way worse.

And I remembered something Uncle Steve had told me once. "Courage isn't the lack of fear. Courage is being afraid, and doing the brave thing anyway."

I thought about Daddy, alone in the dark, caged up by evil men.

I pushed my way out of Mother's lap and scooted over to him, and took his metal hand and squeezed it. "Were you afraid, when they had you locked up?"

He shook his head. "They wouldn't let me feel afraid. But I was very afraid once I was out, because my mind was free and I could feel things again. Then I was able to fight them."

Maybe since I was scared, that meant I could fight them too. I thought very hard for a few seconds, and I said, "When I grow up, I want to fight the evil people. Will you teach me how?"

His eyes widened. "I don't know, sweetheart. You're a little young to start thinking about that."

I rolled my eyes. "Daddy, I've been thinking about that since I was four and Uncle Steve was still Captain America. I think it's time I started to make some decisions, and this is one of them."

Daddy looked at Mother and said, "Sweet Christ, it's YOU all over again."

Mother was quiet for a minute, and then she said, "We either teach her, or she learns it on her own and learns it all wrong."

"Exactly," I said.

"Okay, I'll make you a deal," Daddy said. "If you show us that we can trust you to behave, and not put yourself in danger, for six months... then I'll start teaching you how to fight."

Six months seemed like forever, but something in Daddy's eyes said that this was not a bargaining kind of situation. I said, "Deal." We shook hands on it.

That was the day I first started thinking like a grownup. I didn't know, before that, that grownups spend so much of their time scared.

Now I know.


End file.
